


Skins to Shed

by IAmANonnieMouse



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Coffeeshop AU, Crack, Eames POV, M/M, but not AU, i dont know what to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 20:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10199420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmANonnieMouse/pseuds/IAmANonnieMouse
Summary: Eames has a few secrets.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I...don't know how to explain this. I started it a month or so ago after I had a shouty caps conversation with [somedrunkpirate](http://somedrunkpirate.tumblr.com/) about how I wanted to write a fic with a more vulnerable Eames. Except it looked like it was a crack coffeeshop AU, not angst, so I stopped it. And then I pulled it back out again this week and binge-wrote 5.3k words of this in two and a half days.
> 
> So yeah. I did manage to get to the angst, though! It wasn't _quite_ the angst I had intended but there is angst. And a happy ending. So. *shrugs*
> 
> Thanks to [therealpigfarts23](http://therealpigfarts23.tumblr.com/) for offering support and quick edits in between her anime binge :)

He’s back. Mister Just-Give-Me-My-Coffee-Already, no cream, no sugar, who refuses to give his name when he places his order and sits in the back of Eames’ café for hours, typing on his laptop in a pristine three-piece suit.

He first came in a few weeks ago, demanding the most potent coffee Eames could make, and he’s been here ever since, walking in at 9 A.M. like clockwork and ignoring Eames’ attempts to be friendly.

Eames is fascinated.

There are so many things he’d like to know. Like, where he buys his suits. Or what he does for work. Or what his name is.

But he holds back, and makes him coffee, and smiles brightly and curls up behind the counter with a book instead of staring at the man for hours on end.

It usually works.

Across the small room, the man sighs loudly at his laptop. His phone rings.

“What,” he says flatly. There’s a pause. “No, you can’t move up the date by a _week,_ what the fuck? No, no we won’t be ready by then.” He shifts, the small café chair creaking underneath him. “No. Oh, you think so, huh? Well, you go right ahead and do it without me.”

There’s another, longer pause.

“You bet your ass I’ll walk away. And I’m taking my research with me.” He scoffs. “I’ve got tons of people tripping over themselves to reach me because I’m the best at what I do, and plenty know better than to question my judgement like you’ve been doing since day one.”

He starts typing on his keyboard.

“Right, so I’ve already pulled my files. Find yourself another point. Yep. Why thanks, fuck you too. Take care.”

Eames glances up from his book just in time to see the man dial a number. 

“Hi, Margot,” he says. “Still got that opening? Great. I’ll be there by tomorrow night. Yeah, you too.”

He hangs up his phone, packs away his things, and is gone before Eames can even blink.

The café falls into a still quiet. Eames sighs and turns the page in his book. He still doesn’t know the man’s name.

~+~+~

He doesn’t come back for five weeks.

When he walks through the door, thirty-five days later, Eames does a double take.

“You—” he starts, before he can help himself.

The man arches a brow. His cheek is covered in a mottled bruise, and he walks with a slight hitch in his step. “I?” he says, leaning on the counter.

Eames hesitates. “You’ve been gone a while.”

The man smiles. He smiles, and his mouth curls into a grin, and his cheeks have _dimples,_ and his teeth are bright and his eyes crinkle at the edges, and Eames doesn’t know what to do with any of it so he stares and stares and stares.

“Yeah,” the man says. “Had a job.”

“Oh,” says Eames.

“Job’s done,” the man adds, shifting his weight slightly.

“Oh,” says Eames.

The man blinks and looks away. “Anyway. Coffee?”

“Oh,” says Eames. “Yeah. Don’t suppose I could get a name for the order?”

The man looks at him. “I’m the only person in here.”

Eames nods and walks away to make his coffee.

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: he could have gone to art school. He could have gotten a college degree—for free. His art was good enough that more than a few schools were offering him a full ride.

But he didn’t. Now he owns a café.

~+~+~

“You spelled _macchiato_ wrong,” the man informs him one morning. “It’s got an h in it.”

Eames glances up at the chalkboard menu hanging on the wall over him and shrugs. “Well, no one’s noticed yet.”

The man looks at him. “I have.”

Eames sighs. “Coffee?”

“Yeah,” the man says.

When the man comes in the next day, the menu has been updated, with a large, curly ‘h’ in _mahcciato_.

~+~+~

“Hey.”

Eames looks up from his book. The man is leaning on the counter, biting on his bottom lip.

“Can you do something for me?” the man asks.

Eames closes his book. _Anything, everything, whatever you need,_ he thinks. “Depends,” he says.

The man holds out an envelope. “A woman is coming by this afternoon, but I have a meeting. Give her this.”

Eames glances at the envelope then back at the man. “Cool your jets, mate, I haven’t even agreed yet.”

The man flushes slightly and glances down. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m not good at this.” He takes a deep breath and looks Eames in the eye. “It would be a huge favor if you could do this for me. Please?”

 _Of course,_ Eames thinks. “If you do something for me too,” he says instead.

The man frowns. “Okay.”

“Tell me your name.”

The man hesitates, then smiles. “Arthur,” he says, holding out a hand.

Eames shakes it. “Eames.”

The dimples appear, faintly. “I know.”

He hands Eames the envelope and walks away.

 _Shit,_ Eames thinks, looking at the envelope. _I hope he’s not a drug lord._

~+~+~

The woman arrives later that afternoon, as promised, and she graciously buys a coffee and pastry from him after he hands her the envelope. She’s tall and willowy and they talk in French while he makes her drink and she kisses him on both cheeks before she leaves.

Eames thinks she’s a pretty unusual drug dealer. But then, Arthur is a pretty unusual name for a drug lord.

~+~+~

“Was the book too boring?” Arthur asks him the next morning.

Eames looks up from his sketchpad. “Your friend got the envelope,” he says instead of answering.

“Oh,” Arthur says. “Thank you.”

“Please tell me you’re not a drug lord,” Eames blurts.

Arthur stares at him. “I’m not a drug lord,” he says.

Eames blushes. “Okay. Good.” He makes Arthur his coffee.

Arthur takes it, looking at him strangely, and walks back to his table.

~+~+~

Arthur hesitates one morning, after Eames hands him his coffee.

“Listen,” he says, “would you mind doing me another favor?”

Eames glances at him. “Is it for your drug dealer friend? Because I liked her.”

Something flickers across Arthur’s face. “Yeah. And she’s not— _we’re_ not—drug dealers. But yeah.”

“Sure,” Eames says. “Where’s the envelope?”

Arthur gnaws on his lip and places a large silver briefcase on the counter. “It’s a little bigger than an envelope this time.”

Eames stares at it. “You’re a drug lord.”

“What? _Eames._ No, I am not a drug lord.”

Eames points at the silver briefcase. “You’re a drug lord.”

Arthur sighs. “If you’re not comfortable with this—”

Eames closes his sketchbook and takes the briefcase. “I never said that. I’m just worried about your chosen profession.”

Arthur sighs and looks away. “She’s coming tonight.”

“I’ll give her your love,” Eames says.

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: he used to be the best thief in the neighborhood. His forgeries were a work of God, some said.

Then one day, he left that all behind. Now, he owns a café.

But that doesn’t mean he’s lost his touch.

~+~+~

The lock on the briefcase is not a combination, thankfully. Combinations take a lot longer to crack, and Eames doesn’t have time to waste.

His lock pick set is where he left it, taped to the top of the bottom drawer of his desk. The lock is sensitive, but he gets it on the third try. 

“Okay,” he whispers, rubbing his hands together. “Please don’t be a drug lord.”

He opens the case.

“You’re not a drug lord,” he says.

~+~+~

Arthur’s not-drug dealer friend walks into the café much later that night.

“So, you aren’t drug lords,” Eames says.

The woman smiles brightly. “Arthur told me about your drug fascination,” she croons. “So sweet.”

“You’re dream thieves,” Eames says.

The woman leans against the counter. “What an interesting idea,” she laughs. “Arthur said you’re a reader. Where did you see that, in a Jules Verne novel?”

“I lived in the streets,” Eames says. “Someone tried to recruit me to join a dreamshare team. Stayed long enough to learn I’d be safer on the streets, then walked away.”

“Far away, I would imagine,” the woman comments, eyes glittering.

“Far away,” Eames admits.

The woman looks at him for a long moment. “Do forgive me,” she says, “I’ve been very rude.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Mal.”

He shakes it. “Eames.”

“Tell me, Eames,” Mal says, “are you interested in joining a dreamshare team _now?”_

~+~+~

The next morning, Eames is sketching from his seat behind the counter. It’s a drawing of Arthur, seated at his usual table by the window, laptop open, papers piled everywhere.

_Find yourself another point._

He should have connected the dots ages ago.

He frowns, and darkens the shadow underneath Arthur’s chair.

“You’re a forger.”

Eames looks up. Arthur’s leaning over the counter.

“I was,” Eames says.

“How much dream experience do you have?”

Eames frowns. “I already told Mal no.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “I’m just asking. It’s not often you meet people outside the field.”

Eames closes his sketchbook and stands. “Coffee?”

“No,” Arthur says. “Not until you answer my question.”

Eames sighs. “Dreamshare is dangerous. I walked away, and I’m staying away.”

Arthur smirks, eyes glittering. “I bet you were amazing.”

Eames turns away and starts making his coffee.

“If you ever change your mind,” Arthur says as he takes the cup, “just let me know.”

~+~+~

That night, when Eames is closing up, he spots a small folded piece of paper tucked under one of the napkin holders.

He carefully unfolds it. Inside is a jaggedly drawn anchor.

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: he used to know a drug lord.

Things didn’t work out too well between them.

~+~+~

“You’re in trouble.”

Eames glances up from his sketch and sees Arthur leaning on the counter, which is quickly becoming a familiar sight. “Trouble?” Eames repeats lightly.

Arthur nods. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t add anything else.

“What kind of trouble are we talking about here?” Eames asks eventually.

Arthur shifts his weight. “The Hugo Straus kind of trouble.”

Eames stills. “Where did you get that name?”

“He’s been tearing up dreamshare, searching for a cheeky British bastard,” Arthur says. “Says he’s got unfinished business with him.”

Eames forces a smile on his face. “You think I’m cheeky, love?”

Arthur ignores him. “I’m the best at what I do,” he starts.

Eames puts down his sketchbook. “Let me get you your coffee, yeah?”

Arthur takes it, frowning slightly, but doesn’t pursue it.

~+~+~

The obvious solution would be to ask Arthur for the help he not-so-subtly offered. Except, Eames has been on his own a long time. And he knows that taking favors is the best way to end up in a ditch somewhere, or dragged down a road he didn’t know existed.

If he takes Arthur’s help, he’ll probably have to join Arthur’s team.

Is it worth it?

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: Hugo Straus was a drug lord who dealt in Somnacin on the side and took extraction jobs because he did dreamshare in the military so why-the-hell-not. And Eames was his partner in crime.

Forging in real life is nothing compared to forging in a dream.

But circumstances changed and he did what he does best: he transformed into someone else and ran. Far away.

But not far enough, it seems.

~+~+~

“You’re a forger,” Arthur says.

“We established that weeks ago, petal,” Eames says.

“Did you forge in dreams, too?”

“In dreams?” Eames echoes.

Arthur’s eyes travel across his face. “I see,” he says. He takes his coffee and sits at his usual table.

Eames sits back down and tries not to be unnerved by a perfectly natural question. It doesn’t completely work.

~+~+~

Two weeks later, five men are waiting outside of Eames’ café when he closes.

“Hugo sends his regards,” they spit at him.

Eames coughs, tasting the all-too-familiar tang of his own blood. “Tell him I felt them deeply.”

They don’t seem to appreciate his answer.

~+~+~

The next morning, Arthur glares at him. “That’s it, you’re coming with me.”

Eames sighs lightly, careful not to jostle his sore chest. “I’m far from peak condition, love,” he says, “but don’t think that means I’m going to let you just walk me out of here.”

“You’re still fucking bleeding,” Arthur bites out.

“Oh.” Eames reaches up, lightly touches his own head. “Did that reopen?”

Arthur throws his hands in the air. 

“I’m not coming with you, darling,” Eames says. “I’ve been on my own a long time, I think I can manage.”

Arthur scowls and stalks back to his table without waiting for his coffee.

~+~+~

The next day, Arthur walks in with Mal in tow.

“Oh, mon cher,” she croons, cupping his face in her hands. Eames cautiously eyes her long nails. “What have they done to you?”

“Nothing new or exciting, I’m afraid,” Eames says.

Mal tuts. “Won’t you let us help you? Poor Arthur’s bitten off all his fingernails trying to figure out how to keep you safe.”

 _“Mal,”_ Arthur says.

“Was I not supposed to say that?” Mal asks, lips pursed.

Eames laughs, even though it hurts. “Thanks, but no. I can handle this.”

~+~+~

At the end of the week, Eames knocks on Arthur’s hotel room door, long after dark.

Arthur opens it, gun in hand, and raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know what I should be more concerned about,” he says. “The fact that you know my hotel room or that you’re covered in blood.”

“Not my blood,” Eames says, walking inside. “Well, most of it isn’t.” He turns to smile fuzzily at Arthur. “Told you I could handle it!”

“I see,” Arthur says, nodding.

“But the water’s broken in my apartment,” Eames says. “And I need a shower.”

“I see,” Arthur says.

“So I thought I’d use yours,” Eames finishes proudly.

Arthur is quiet for a moment. “You’re fucking drunk,” he states.

Eames takes off his shirt, pulling it inside-out and balling it so that the blood is all, mostly, contained on the inside. “We can talk about this after my shower, darling,” he calls, walking in the general direction of where he thinks the bathroom is.

Arthur follows. “Why the fuck are you drunk?”

Eames frowns at the shower apparatus. “It’s like they don’t want me to get clean.”

Arthur sighs and pulls the curtain and turns on the water. “Why are you fucking drunk?” he repeats.

“You’re the best, love.” Eames strips off his pants and steps into the warm water. “The absolute best.”

Arthur wrenches the shower curtain to the side and points his gun at Eames. “I’m fucking serious, Eames, why the fuck are you drunk?”

Eames stares at him. “Because I couldn’t kill Hugo if I was too busy being in pain, now could I?” He tries to pull the curtain back. “Would you mind, darling? There’s a bit of a draft.”

Arthur doesn’t let go of the curtain. He doesn’t lower his gun, either. “You killed Hugo Straus— _the_ Hugo Straus, also called Hercules Hugo—while you were fucking intoxicated?”

Eames sighs and reaches for the soap. “You don’t have to sound so incredulous about it, darling. You’ll hurt my feelings.”

Arthur says, “You’re gonna clean yourself up, then you’re gonna come into the other room, sit the fuck down, and tell me who the fuck you really are.”

He leaves without closing the curtain.

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: he tried to be a soldier once. It got him off the streets, and he was the best close-quarters fighter in his team, but he didn’t like to follow orders on a good day, and they put him in Project Somnacin, where nothing was sacred anymore and they faffed about in people’s minds day in and day out, and Eames learned that there are a million ways to die, each more horrible than the last.

After the Project was shut down, he left the service and didn’t look back. Except he couldn’t help but miss dreaming, miss the addictive _power_ of it all.

That’s why he started working with Hugo.

~+~+~

Eames steps out of the shower and carefully dries himself off. He leaves the towel wrapped around his waist because he figures it’s a little less threatening and walks into the other room.

Arthur’s seated in a chair, gun aimed at the center of his chest.

“Sit on the bed,” Arthur says.

Eames sits. “I realize how this may look.”

“Explain,” Arthur says.

Eames explains.

~+~+~

Arthur paces and writes furiously in his Moleskine and calls Mal, who comes over in a flurry of French and pursed lips and immediately calms everything down.

“You know what this means,” she says.

“Yes,” Eames says. “I go back to my coffee shop like nothing happened, and we go about our lives.”

“The police are already crawling over your apartment,” Mal reports.

“Well, fuck,” Eames says.

Arthur rubs his forehead. “How the hell have you gotten this far?”

“I’m very good at what I do,” Eames says, frowning. “But I’m usually not drunk while I do it.”

Arthur sighs.

~+~+~

Eames probably shouldn’t have gone after Hugo Straus while drunk. His sloppiness left him no other option than leave his precious café behind and join Arthur’s dreamshare team.

But Eames has a lot of regrets in his life. What’s one more?

~+~+~

The first job they take is a walk in the park, so outrageously simple—with such a low salary—that Eames knows Arthur’s using it to test him.

That’s fine. Eames gets to show off a bit.

He sheds skins faster than he can blink, slips into one personality just as he’s stepping out of the next. Forging in a dream, actually, truly becoming someone else, is a heady experience, one that Eames has missed.

Afterwards, Arthur shakes Eames hand and stares him in the eye and says, “I’ve never seen anyone else do what you can do.”

Eames smirks and takes his money. Maybe working on a dreamshare team won’t be so bad this time.

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: he is the person who invented dream-forging. He and Hugo were under one night, faffing about, and he said, “Do you think you can change yourself into someone else under here?” and Hugo said, “Fuck off, you fucking wastrel, and quit fucking with my head,” and Eames laughed and imagined he was someone else, just to see if he could, just to fuck with Hugo’s head.

Hugo stared. “Fucking hell,” he breathed.

~+~+~

Arthur’s an amazingly competent point man. Possibly one of the best. He books flights, monitors everyone’s aliases, tracks government activity, researches the marks so impeccably Eames can open a folder and know what brand of deodorant they buy, never misses the mark when there’s a gun in his hand, and manages to do it all in a three-piece suit.

Eames can’t really mourn his café when he has Arthur to watch.

Except relationships are messy, especially for someone like Eames, and he’s already got plenty of regrets in his life. There’s no need to actively create another.

And there’s also the small possibility that Arthur would bite Eames’ hand off if he tried to touch him. Possibly.

So he plays it the way Eames plays best, with pet names and jokes and sarcasm and flair, and Arthur reacts with rolled eyes and small smirks and long sighs, and Eames thinks that being on this dreamshare team may just be the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

~+~+~

Mal only occasionally works jobs with them, since she has a rich daddy who’s a professor at Oxford and doesn’t need to be a criminal on the side. She reappears a few months after Eames’ Hugo Straus incident and dramatically collapses on Arthur’s hotel bed.

“I’ve fallen in love,” she announces.

Arthur scoffs but doesn’t look up from his pages of research. Eames shifts in his chair. “Does this person have a name?” he asks.

“Dominic,” she croons. “Dominic Cobb. Isn’t that a beautiful name?”

“No,” Arthur says, typing aggressively on his laptop. “It’s an ugly name. I never want to hear it again.”

“Dominic,” Mal sighs. “Dominic Cobb. Mrs. Dominic Cobb.”

“For God’s sake, Mal!” Arthur slams his laptop shut and turns to face her. “Are you a twelve year old girl?”

“I could be,” she says dreamily. “Swept off my feet by a charming older man who promised me magical lands…”

Arthur looks at Eames. “Is she serious?”

“It would seem so,” Eames says, trying not to laugh. “Mal, poppet, where did you meet this charming older man?”

“Dominic,” she says. “Dominic Cobb.”

“Yes,” Eames says. “Dominic Cobb. Where did you meet him?”

“One of daddy’s social dinners,” she sighs. “He’s the son of one of the men that built the PASIV with daddy.”

“Oh, perfect,” Arthur mutters.

“Yes,” Mal agrees. “He is absolutely perfect.”

Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs loudly. “Are we gonna do this job or not?”

“We should have Dominic work a job with us,” Mal says.

“No,” Arthur says. He stands and drops a pile of papers on her chest. “Now, get to work.”

She scowls but complies, and the room falls quiet as they all begin the arduous process of researching their newest mark.

Eames leaves to get them all coffee later that day, and he catches the end of their conversation as he returns.

“Mal, we’ve talked about this—”

“This is different, Arthur, he’s so good to me, you would love him, he—”

_“Mal.”_

“I swear, Arthur, it’s not like that, he—”

“Mal, his dad helped invent dreamshare, of course it’s like that.”

“Arthur.”

“I can’t watch you do this to yourself again. I can’t.”

They’re silent for a long moment, and Eames straightens his shoulders and plasters a smile on his face and barges in. “Sorry for the wait,” he says as Arthur and Mal separate and move to opposite ends of the room. “The barista kept trying to flirt with me. I’m sure you know how it is, darling.”

Mal stands in front of the window and stares at the street below. Arthur glances at Eames, frowning, but manages an attempt at a smile.

Eames tries not to dwell on it. It’s none of his business anyway.

~+~+~

They don’t do another job with Mal for three months. When they see her, Arthur immediately zeroes in on the ring on her finger.

“You’re engaged,” he says.

She smiles brightly at him, almost too wide. “I’m married,” she says.

Arthur’s face goes completely blank. “Married?”

“Married?” Eames echoes.

She nods. “To Dom.”

“Dominic Cobb,” Arthur says, an edge to his voice.

“Yes,” Mal says, softer. She watches Arthur, eyes shadowed. “Arthur, don’t be—”

Arthur stands, buttons his jacket and smooths it down. “Excuse me,” he says, and walks out of the room.

Mal stares at the door for a moment, and Eames watches her carefully. “Mal?” he says.

She blinks. “I see,” she murmurs, then she leaves too.

Eames sits alone in the silent room. “What,” he says, “was that?”

Nobody answers.

~+~+~

Arthur doesn’t come back until after dark. His hair has fallen out of its gel, and his jacket is noticeably wrinkled, but he looks no worse for wear.

“Mal left,” Eames says, looking him over.

“Fine,” Arthur says. “We’ll do the job without her.”

Eames frowns. “Can we?”

Arthur turns to him, eyes glittering in the moonlight streaming through the window. “Yes,” he says. “You’re better than her anyway.”

~+~+~

They manage to pull off the job, just the two of them, but only barely. And after, Arthur says he wants to get a drink, so Eames follows.

The bar is a dive, and Eames watches as Arthur orders two shots and throws them back, looking ludicrously out of place in his three-piece suit. He orders another drink and brings it to a table, feral energy pouring off him in waves.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Eames asks.

“I’m not your fucking girlfriend,” Arthur growls.

“No,” Eames says. “You’re my partner and my friend, and—what?”

Arthur laughs, mouth twisted, hand curled around his drink. “Fuck, I wish you meant it that way,” he mutters.

“What?” Eames asks.

Arthur shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Eames says. “But we can’t do that many jobs by ourselves. We’re gonna have to find someone else if—”

Arthur waves a hand in his face. “I don’t want to talk about that either.”

“Okay,” Eames says.

They sit for a while, the noise from the bar filling the space between them. Arthur stares at his drink, then abruptly stands. “I’m sick of this,” he says. “Let’s go.”

They walk back towards the hotel in silence. Arthur’s hands are buried in his pants pockets, which Eames has never seen him do before.

Eames wants to ask if he’s okay. He doesn’t.

Arthur stops in the middle of the sidewalk. Eames slows, turns back. “Arthur?”

“Fuck this,” Arthur mutters.

“What?” Eames walks closer to him. “Arthur?”

Eames has seen Arthur fight, both topside and below. He’s watched him move in the blink of an eye, disarming a weapon faster than Eames can slip into someone else’s skin. Arthur’s one of the fastest people he knows. None of that explains why Arthur is suddenly in his space, holding Eames’ jacket, breathing Eames’ air.

“Arthur,” Eames starts.

“I said, ‘Fuck this,’” Arthur murmurs, and then he leans in and tilts his head, and he’s kissing Eames, hard and sure and _fuck,_ Eames has to wrap his arms around Arthur’s waist and run a hand through his silky hair and—

“Fuck,” Eames says, ripping his mouth away, chest heaving for breath. “Arthur.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t want this,” Arthur says, eyes sharp, voice rough and jagged and everything Eames has never let himself imagine.

Eames closes his eyes and tries to remind himself why relationships don’t work, why he can’t do this.

“I’ve seen you watching me,” Arthur says. “You’ve been watching me since I walked into your café.”

He leans in again, but Eames puts a hand out. “Arthur,” he breathes, hating the way his voice comes out shaky and thin. He tries again. “Arthur, we shouldn’t do this.”

“Shouldn’t,” Arthur repeats. “Not, ‘I can’t do this,’ or, ‘I don’t want to do this.’”

He reaches up, trails a finger over the shell of Eames’ ear.

Eames shudders, leans. “Arthur,” he says again. “This is a bad idea.”

“Perfect,” Arthur breathes. “You love bad ideas.”

And he kisses Eames again, and Eames can’t fight himself anymore, so he pulls Arthur close and kisses him back and tries to forget all the reasons he shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.

 _This is different,_ he thinks, like Mal had said. _Arthur’s different._

~+~+~

Eames wakes slowly, languidly. The sheets are bunched under his feet. He yawns, stretches a little, and blinks open his eyes.

The hotel room is empty.

He bolts upright in bed. “Arthur?” he calls, before he can stop himself.

There’s a note on the nightstand.

_Nice working with you as always. Job in Austria, 3 weeks. A._

Eames stares at the message, the hotel letterhead mocking him. He should have known better.

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: he wasn’t always Eames.

Forging in reality isn’t quite the same as forging in a dream, but it’s still possible. Change your name, your personality, your mannerisms. Play up the accent, or soften it on the edges. Wrinkle your nose when you laugh, rub the back of your neck when you’re nervous, tilt your head up and look down your nose at people.

It’s the little things.

Eames has been many different people in his life, none of them real. It’s worked for him so far, becoming someone else when life got too dangerous or too boring, never worrying about cutting ties because there were no ties to cut.

He should have known better, with Arthur. He _did_ know better.

~+~+~

He meets Arthur in Austria three weeks later.

Arthur’s first words to him are, “You’re late,” and Eames immediately understands that they aren’t going to talk about it at all.

Someone else is working with them, taking the work that Mal usually handles. Eames wonders if Arthur’s still fighting with her, too, if he destroyed both of his friendships in one night.

He doesn’t know how he feels about that.

~+~+~

They keep working together. Mal reappears, bright and charming and French as ever, and she drags Dominic Cobb along with her. He’s not a bad man, despite his tendency to start lecturing everyone when he speaks, and he’s clearly infatuated with Mal.

Arthur warms to him, too, stays late in the evening talking with him about dream architecture and paradoxes and compounded levels. It leaves a sour taste in the back of Eames’ mouth.

Months pass, jobs come and go.

They never talk about it.

~+~+~

Some nights, when Eames can’t sleep, he wonders if Arthur somehow knew that Eames wasn’t Eames. If he managed to figure out, somehow, some way, that Eames isn’t real, that Eames has never been real, that Eames is so well-forged that even the man forging him doesn’t know what parts of him are fake anymore.

Maybe that’s why he left, Eames thinks. Arthur only knows how to appreciate the concrete, even in dreams.

~+~+~

Mal has a baby girl. Eames goes to the baby shower because it seems the nice thing to do. Arthur’s there, with a stringy, nervous man hanging off his arm.

“Eames,” Arthur says when he sees him. “This is Nash.”

Nash watches him with weasel eyes.

“Nice to meet you,” Eames says. What he really means is, _Who the fuck are you, and why the fuck are you touching Arthur?_

The way Nash’s eyes widen, then narrow, Eames thinks he got the point.

~+~+~

Time goes on. Eames starts branching out, working with whoever wants him and pays well. It’s fun and exciting and exhilarating, and it makes him appreciate Arthur’s work like never before.

Arthur really is the best point in the business.

~+~+~

He meets Yusuf on a job. They bond over the English vernacular and cats, of all things, and they grab a drink after the job’s finished.

“You know,” Yusuf says, some indiscriminate number of drinks later, “you’re not half bad.”

“Thanks,” Eames says. “I think.”

Yusuf finds that funny for some reason, and he starts laughing and laughing, and suddenly Eames is laughing too, so hard that he falls off his stool.

“Bugger,” he says.

Yusuf laughs some more and raises his drink in a toast.

“World’s best forger,” he thinks he hears Yusuf say.

Eames flips him off, just to be sure.

~+~+~

“Listen,” Yusuf says over the phone, a few months later, “have you ever heard of inception?”

Eames squints at his clock. “Do you have any fucking idea what time it is?” he asks.

“Inception,” Yusuf repeats. 

“What?” Eames fumbles with the light, squints in the sudden brightness. “No. What is it?”

“It’s the opposite of an extraction.”

“Yusuf, mate, tell me like I’m a five-year-old, yeah?”

“You _are_ a five year old.”

“Piss off.” Eames sits up, rubs the back of his neck. “What’s this thing?”

Yusuf sighs, his breath gusting over the phone. “Instead of stealing information,” he says slowly, “you plant an idea in their head.”

Eames stills. “What?”

“Yeah,” Yusuf says.

“Fuck,” Eames breathes.

“I knew you’d be in,” Yusuf says. “Get here by the end of the week, okay?” He hangs up.

Eames stares at his phone and realizes his hands are shaking. “Fuck,” he whispers.

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: inception was the reason Project Somnacin was shut down.

Of course, it wasn’t called inception then, just like how extractions weren’t called extractions. But the military decided they wanted to screw with people’s minds more than ever, so they decided to experiment on their own men.

Ross, the brightest dreamer in the Project, ran through the compound, screaming and shooting everyone in sight.

Eames and a few others managed to corner him in a back room. The alarms were blaring, and there was blood everywhere, and Ross was a sniper who never missed a shot, and Eames couldn’t believe how much _worse_ this all was in reality.

“Wake me up,” Ross whimpered, hands trembling on his gun. “Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up, _wake me up_.”

Someone else tried to talk him down, tried to explain.

“I need to wake up,” Ross sobbed, and shot himself in the head.

Eames watched him do it, felt his blood paint his own face, and couldn’t believe how much worse this all was in reality.

~+~+~

“So who are we incepting?” Eames asks when he arrives in Mombassa.

“Some kid,” Yusuf says. “He wants to stop being scared of spiders.”

“Bloody brilliant,” Eames mutters.

The team has two other members, both young and brilliant and naïve. Eames tries to warn them, but they refuse to listen, and the job is a disaster, and they don’t even make it to the second level before being kicked out.

Two weeks later, Eames finds out the kid killed himself. He jumped out of his window trying to escape the spiders he thought were crawling out of his skin.

~+~+~

Arthur reappears a few months later and pulls Eames into a job with no militarization, only one level, and an easy forge.

Eames could almost kiss him for it, but he knows better.

“Mal and Dom had a boy,” Arthur tells him one afternoon. “James.”

“Not Philip?” Eames asks.

Arthur chuckles. “No, I think having a Philip and a Phillipa would have been too much for even them.”

“That’s good,” Eames says. “I’m happy for them.”

“Are you?” Arthur asks.

Eames doesn’t know what that means. “How’s Nash?” he asks instead.

Arthur frowns. “Fine. We’re fine.”

“Good,” Eames says.

They don’t talk much after that.

~+~+~

Eames is starting to get sick of being Eames. It’s been a while now, and he can feel that itchiness under his skin. If he waits too long, it’ll start to feel like burning instead.

But he’s got ties now, he’s got a reputation in dreamshare that he doesn’t want to have to reconstruct, and he’s got friends—well, _Yusuf_ and maybe Mal—that he doesn’t want to leave behind.

He runs blunt nails across the thin layer of skin on his arm.

He’s got time. He’ll figure it out.

~+~+~

His ringing phone wakes him up at one in the morning. By the time he gets to it, there’s a voicemail waiting for him. It’s from Arthur. Arthur, who never calls Eames, hasn’t called him once since that night that they never talk about. Arthur, who only ever communicates through email and text.

“Eames, it’s, uh, it’s me. Mal—Mal’s dead. She—Fuck. She’s gone. I, uh, I thought you’d, uh. I thought you’d want to know. Fuck. Sorry, I, uh. Bye.”

Eames stares at his phone. Everything is so much worse in reality.

~+~+~

Gossip runs through the dreamshare community like a wildfire. He hears about Arthur, the idiot who’s thrown his career away to chase after Dom, the nut job who probably killed his wife.

He hears about how Cobb is going around calling himself the world’s best extractor. He hears about how Arthur is like a shadow at Dom’s side, always there, always silent.

He hears about Nash, who was found in a broken heap behind a hotel with the word “traitor” painted on his chest.

He hears about everything.

~+~+~

He visits Yusuf because he doesn’t know what else to do, goes and sits in his favorite casino to clear his mind. The itchiness under his skin is getting worse. Everything is getting worse.

A voice cuts through his thoughts. “You can rub them together all you want, they’re not gonna breed.”

Dominic Cobb. It seems like only yesterday that Mal had been sprawled in a hotel room in raptures over him.

_Dominic Cobb. Isn’t that a beautiful name? Mrs. Dominic Cobb._

And now, Mal’s gone, just like Ross, trying to wake up from a dream that didn’t exist.

He stands, postures, listens, and somehow lets Dominic Cobb talk him into inception. 

Arthur will be there, he thinks. 

He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad.

~+~+~

Arthur corners him at the end of the first day. “Why are you here?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Eames responds.

Arthur shakes his head. “It’s a shit job,” he says. “You shouldn’t be here.”

And Eames is surprised to find that he’s still bitter, still jagged and shattered about that morning and that _fucking hotel letterhead,_ and he says, “Must have been a bad breakup, you and Nash. Takes a lot for someone to betray his team.”

It’s too far. He knows it even as the words leave his mouth. But Eames is an emotional, turbulent mess on the surface, and is an empty, bottomless cavern deep inside, and Eames is starting to wear thin, staring to shed and peel on the edges, and Mal is dead, and he is here, and Eames doesn’t know how to deal with any of this, has never had to face anything like this before.

Arthur’s eyes narrow. “Fuck you,” he says.

“Already have done, darling,” Eames says. “Wasn’t one of my better decisions.”

He sees the blow coming, doesn’t try to block it.

“I thought we could be adults about that,” Arthur hisses in his ear as Eames coughs, down on one knee. “I thought we _were_ being adults about that. Apparently, I was wrong.”

Eames grabs a handful of his shirt and shoves him against the wall, chest heaving. “You’re the one that started it,” he growls, voice full of glass shards and gaping holes. “You’re the one that came onto me that night. And you’re the one that wasn’t there the next day.”

Arthur is completely still, and Eames thinks he gave too much away just now but doesn’t know what to do about it.

Arthur reaches up, untangles Eames’ fingers from his shirt, smooths it down, and walks away.

~+~+~

After the job, at the baggage claim, Arthur walks over to Eames’ side, casually places his suitcase on top of Eames’ on the cart, and says, “It’s because you scared me.”

Eames stares at him. “What?”

Arthur glances away, shoves his hands in his pockets, then meets Eames’ eyes. “That night,” he says. “You looked at me like you would have walked through fire if I asked you to, like you trusted me more than anything in the world, and it scared me. I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t think I could—I didn’t think I was good enough to have that.”

Eames stares.

“For what it’s worth,” Arthur says, “I’m sorry.”

Eames doesn’t have any words, so he reaches out and takes Arthur’s hand and just…holds it. Reminds himself of the weight of it, the callouses on the fingertips.

Arthur exhales sharply, like someone who’s been holding their breath so long they forgot how to breathe. 

And Eames takes a breath and forces away the itchy burning under his skin and steps closer and kisses Arthur, in the middle of the baggage claim, and can’t help but smile when Arthur kisses back.

Some things are better in reality.

~+~+~

Four days. For four, beautiful, blissful, precious days, Eames is with Arthur, sharing his space, his days, his bed. For four magical days, Eames can barely feel that burning under his skin, can barely remember that he can’t keep being Eames forever.

Four days.

And then, the morning of the fifth day, after Eames kisses Arthur awake and stumbles out of bed to get the paper from Arthur’s front step, he finds a jagged anchor painted onto Arthur’s door.

And everything comes crashing back to reality.

~+~+~

“I thought you killed him!”

“I thought I did too!”

“Eames, what the fuck?”

Eames rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have gone after him when I was drunk,” he admits.

“No shit!” Arthur roars.

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: he and Hugo Straus first met in Project Somnacin.

After the Project was shut down, they hit the black market together, taking jobs because they missed dreaming, and working together like Butch Cassidy and Sundance. 

But then Eames got tired of being who he was, and when that itch under his skin became unbearable, he changed into someone else and walked away.

Except, he might have taken some of their money with him.

And Hugo has somehow managed to track him down.

~+~+~

Eames tries to explain everything to Arthur, editing out the whole turning-into-other-people bit.

Arthur sighs. “Eames, how have you gotten this far?” he asks, just like he had that night, ages ago, when Eames still had a café and Mal was still there to charm her way through life.

Eames shrugs.

“We’re going to have to just confront him outright,” Arthur decides, tapping his pen on his Moleskine. It does something to Eames, that Arthur has unquestioningly referred to them as “we,” that he’s involving himself in something that he could just as easily walk away from. “Draw him out, leave nothing to chance.”

Eames nods. “Alright. How are we going to do that?”

Arthur hesitates. “I don’t know yet. I need to research him more.”

“Well,” Eames says, “I can tell you he’s probably watching the house right now.”

“What?” Arthur says.

“And knowing him, he’s about to come barreling in any minute.”

“Eames,” Arthur says, and then every light in the house turns out.

Someone’s hand covers his mouth, and Eames spins around and kicks blindly. His foot connects with something, and he hears a grunt of pain, but there are others, and they pin his arms and kick the backs of his knees, and then something heavy and solid hits him on the head, and he’s out.

~+~+~

When Eames wakes, his head is throbbing, his mouth is dry, and his wrists are very uncomfortably tied behind the back of the chair he’s sitting in. The knot of the rope is digging into his palm.

“Oh, good,” Hugo Straus says. “You’re awake.” He walks into Eames’ line of vision and squats down in front of him. “I heard you and Arthur were talking about finding me. Thought I’d save you the trouble.”

“Good of you,” Eames says.

“So, Eames—is that what you’re calling yourself these days? Eames?”

“Yeah,” Eames says.

Hugo grunts. “Doesn’t have a great ring to it. I liked your last name better.” He walks out of Eames’ line of sight and Eames forces his head up.

Arthur is the only other person in the room, fully awake and rumpled but looking no worse for wear. He’s also tied to a chair.

“What do you think of Eames?” Hugo asks him. He casually pulls a gun from his waistband and checks it over.

Arthur watches him steadily. “He’s alright. I don’t have the frame of reference you do, though.”

Hugo smirks. “I like him,” he says to Eames. “He’s got a mouth on him. But I don’t have time to stand around chatting like a schoolgirl.”

Hugo inhales steadily and, in one smooth motion, racks the slide of his gun and aims it at Eames. “Where’s my money?”

Eames laughs. “I spent it all, what’d you expect?”

Hugo doesn’t laugh with him. “You never paid me back,” he says. “You took it all and never came back, and when I finally found you, you tried to kill me.”

“Your cronies weren’t that pleasant,” Eames says. “I wasn’t feeling the love.”

Hugo chuckles and lowers the gun. “You ever wonder why he is the way he is?” he asks Arthur, randomly. “Why he’s so flighty? Hard to pin down?”

Arthur doesn’t answer, but Hugo doesn’t seem to care.

“We met in Project Somnacin,” he says.

“I know,” Arthur says.

“Good.” Hugo grins. “Did he tell you about the inception jobs we did?”

Arthur clenches his jaw.

“Yep, you heard me. The Project thought we should try planting ideas in each other’s heads. You know, instead of killing each other all day, or figuring out what someone’s favorite food was.”

Hugo paces between the two of them, gun still drawn.

“I got to be the team lead when it was his turn,” Hugo says. “We’d done a couple already, figured out what did and didn’t work. Mostly what didn’t work.”

He shrugs.

“Eames likes me,” he tells Arthur in a stage-whisper. “At least, he used to. Before he was Eames. So I waltzed right in, planted the idea without a problem.”

“No,” Eames says. “You didn’t. Whatever it was didn’t stick. I’m not any different.”

“But you are,” Hugo says. He turns back to Arthur. “What’s the most resilient parasite?” he asks. “Isn’t that the line your extractor friend uses? What is the most resilient parasite?”

“An idea,” Arthur says.

“Right. An idea.” Hugo circles around Arthur’s chair and starts over towards Eames. “An idea,” he repeats. “One simple idea that changes everything. One simple idea. Like, ‘The person you are isn’t real.’ Ever wonder what that would do to a person?”

“Hugo,” Eames starts.

“The person you are isn’t real,” Hugo repeats. “I planted that idea in your mind. And it took.”

“Hugo,” Eames says again. “Why—”

“Ever wonder why you’re the best forger in dreamshare?”

Eames hesitates. “Because I invented it. I’m the first one who ever forged in a dream.”

Hugo hums. “Yeah, but that isn’t the reason.” He walks over to Eames, stops directly in front of him. “You’re not real, remember?” He pokes Eames in the forehead. “You’re not real. But you want to be. And you’ll do anything you can just to feel real. Even copy other people.”

He ejects the mag from his gun then reloads it. “You can’t stand being one person for too long, can you?” he asks, meeting Eames’ eyes. “It kills you to keep lying to everyone around you. So you shed skins, drop one name, pick up another. Cut ties and move somewhere else.”

He racks the slide on his gun. “Listen,” he says, “I’ll make you a deal.”

He aims the gun at Eames’ head.

“I’m the one who fucked you up,” he says. “I’ll take the responsibility for that. So if you want, I’ll put you out of your misery, and in return, I’ll forgive your debts and let Arthur walk out of here. And I’ll go away, I swear. You know I keep my word.”

Eames looks at the barrel of the gun, then at Hugo.

“Eames,” Arthur says from across the room, “Eames don’t even fucking think about it. Do you hear me?”

“He doesn’t even know about your past, does he?” Hugo says. “He has no idea what you used to do.”

“Eames!” Arthur shouts.

“So how about it, mate?” Hugo asks, eyes glinting. “Give up this shitty life, and Arthur walks away. Deal?”

Eames takes a deep breath, collects his thoughts. 

“No,” he says, and kicks Hugo’s kneecap. The bullet grazes Eames’ shoulder, and Eames pulls out the last knot of the rope and jumps to his feet. He catches Hugo’s arm and knocks the gun from his hands. It clatters across the floor and lands at Arthur’s feet.

Hugo roars and twists out of the hold and forces Eames to the floor. He charges towards him but is stopped as three shots ring out, one after the other.

Hugo collapses on the floor, blood spreading.

Eames scrambles to his feet and looks around wildly. Arthur’s standing, gun raised. He meets Eames’ shocked gaze.

“Handcuffs,” he says. “They used handcuffs on me, not rope.”

Eames huffs a laugh. “Their mistake,” he says.

“Yeah,” Arthur says. He ejects the magazine from the gun and throws both pieces on the floor. “You okay?” he asks.

Eames nods. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Arthur arches a brow and nods. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

~+~+~

They talk about it. About everything.

Eames tells Arthur that he’s a damaged mess who needs to just leave.

Arthur tells Eames to stay, just try to stay, just a little while, and see how it goes.

So Eames stays. He stays, and he stays, and he stays, and he stays.

~+~+~

Eames has a few secrets. For instance: his friend from the service incepted him to believe that he isn’t real.

But it’s fine, because he knows why he gets that itch under his skin now, and he knows how to deal with it. And Arthur understands when Eames needs to just _be someone else_ for a day or two, and he takes everything at face value and never presses.

And sometimes, when Eames wants to—needs to—they go back to his café and smile at the family behind the counter, who bought the café after Eames was forced to run, and Eames thinks about everything that’s happened between then and now.

And he looks at Arthur, Arthur who wears sweaters and t-shirts and jeans when he isn’t at work, who smiles brilliantly at Eames like he’s the sun and the moon, and thinks that he wouldn’t change a single thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr!](http://iamanonniemouse.tumblr.com/)


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